


Disloyalty

by Caoilainn



Category: Silent Witness (TV)
Genre: Fraternity s17e05 part2, Gen, Inner argument, Why Thomas felt disloyal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 20:26:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18534880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caoilainn/pseuds/Caoilainn
Summary: Why did Thomas feel disloyal following the attack on Jack?





	Disloyalty

**Author's Note:**

> I felt it was unclear in the show just what Thomas ment when he said he felt disloyal, so this is my take on why he said it

_God, I feel like such an arse!_ Thomas Chamberlain thought as he sat in silence next to his colleague Nikki Alexander. It was late at night at the Hamilton Ashe hospital and the waiting area they sat in was empty of people. They were waiting to hear on the prognosis of their friend and co-worker Jack Hodgeson, who was laying in an examination room nearby, unconscious and beaten after an attack most likely meant to kill him.

 

The case with Katie Bowman and Hannah Kennedy had been harrowing. The fact that Jack’s half-brother Ryan was the main suspect had wreaked havoc with the well-organized routine at the Lyell Centre. And if there was anything Thomas hated it was disorder and loss of control. His ex-wife had always called him a control freak and he wondered if that was how others saw him too.

 

He thought back to only a couple of hours previously when he had talked to Nikki in an attempt to get her to endorse him firing Jack and bringing in his old friend Helen Ferguson in as their forensic scientist. Nikki had called him a Silverback and subtly accused him of preferring to rein over a domain of women. At first he had just felt offended because that was not what he intended! As far as Thomas was concerned his reason for wanting to fire Jack was because the younger man had behaved in an inexcusable way throughout the case and it would be so much… easier to have Helen take his place as their forensic scientist, someone Thomas also liked a whole lot more.

 

Maybe it was the word _easier_ that brought him up short. Yes, Jack had gone behind his back, and that Clarissa Mullery had helped Jack wasn’t surprising but even Nikki, a woman Thomas deeply respected, had gone along with it. And in the end Jack was the only one of them, DI Carter included, who had widened the search for an assailant, and had actually come up with hard evidence of another suspect. Understandably Jack wanted to find proof that exonerated his brother but to be fair the proof he had gathered had been fact and not just wishful fiction.

 

Thomas had heard Nikki and Clarissa talking about the two brothers and how Jack had actually given evidence against Ryan when the older man was on trial for assault five years ago. Maybe that should have told him something about Jack’s character.

 

Thomas might have had been too hard on the younger man, he could admit that now. Even Helen, though she didn’t know the man she was filling in for, had tempered Thomas’ ire by simply reminding him how hard it was to stay detached when there was family involved. It all really came back to the fact that Thomas had worked at the Lyell for some time now but he and Jack had never really connected and Thomas found it difficult to really get to know their forensic scientist. It didn’t help that the other man had been reserved and wary from the get go.

 

After Nikki had left he had looked up Jack’s end of the year assessment, made by his predecessor Professor Dalton. Dalton had acknowledged Jack’s occasional hot headedness and wrote that while Jack was always cooperative he had some difficulties with authority figures, mainly the police. All that however was overshadowed by words such as team player, insightful, brilliant, meticulous and dedicated.

 

Thomas had put a more negative spin on Jack’s behaviour, all culminating in the fact that he was the boss and he expected to be obeyed while Jack on the other hand seemed to feel that Thomas had to earn their respect. Nikki and Clarissa where more flexible and sensible while he and Jack more or less subconsciously had been sizing each other up.

 

It took a couple of hours, and a few drinks, before Thomas was ready to acknowledge that maybe he himself had exacerbated the problem and that the ultimate reason for wanting to fire Jack was that he simply wanted things at the Lyell to be easier and more controllable. While he might, just might, be a control freak he prided himself of being a fair man and he could admit to himself that that was no reason to have a valuable member of staff fired. And Thomas was ashamed that he had even thought about using the situation to bring in someone he liked better than the younger man.

 

The last reason he for wanting to fire Jack, the more legitimate reason, had been his distrust of Jack’s commitment to bring a murderer to justice, instead of just wanting his brother to walk free. And tonight Jack had proved him wrong, again.

 

The footage Jack had found of Katie and Dr Nash leaving the club and the news that he knew which hotel they had used when they met in secret resulted in completely clearing Ryan of Katie’s murder. Subsequently there was no motive for Ryan to have killed Hannah, but Jack hadn’t stopped there. He had continued investigating, most likely Thomas thought because he didn’t trust DI Carter to do his job. It might be a fair assumption based on how the DI had focused on Ryan as the murderer, and that the motive had to be sexual, to the complete exclusion of anyone or anything else. And as if that wasn’t enough Carter had wanted the evidence to fit his version of events instead of the other way around. To his shame Thomas had encouraged the team to help Carter to do just that.

 

And now here they were.

 

Jack had been found by a couple walking their dog by the cemetery where Katie’s body had been found. Their dog had barked and they had seen a dark figure running to a nearby car and speeding away. It looked like that was the only reason Jack was even alive right now. It seemed very likely that Jack had fallen victim to the same person who killed the girls and there would be no reason to attack him unless he knew too much or was getting too close to the truth.

 

Now Thomas prayed that Jack would make it and battled feelings of guilt for not listening to the younger man and for trying to take the opportunity to get rid of him. Thomas was also feeling guilty for leading Helen on regarding the possibility of hiring her. He had definitely made a mess of things and he felt incredibly disloyal.

 

Seeing the doors to Jack’s treatment room open and his doctor emerge Thomas gladly pushed those thoughts and feelings away for another time. Now they had to focus on Jack, as well as to find the murderer, though he hoped with all his heart that Jack wouldn’t be counted as one of the victims.

 

Taking a deep breath Thomas stood up with Nikki beside him just as Clarissa reached them and the doctor started to talk.

 

 


End file.
